Trident Racing scores points in Race 2 at Valencia

Leal scores points, Richelmi taken out on lap 5.

Trident Racing completed the sixth round of the 2012 GP2 Series today at Valencia by scoring a positive points finish with Julian Leal. The Colombian youngster was off to a great performance in a race again disrupted by several crashes and two safety-car condition.

Julian Leal

Photo by: GP2 Media Service

Leal took-off from the 12th spot on the grid and started to lap on a very consistent pace, passing several of his rivals and making it to the checkered flag in 8th. Stéphane Richelmi was definitely less lucky than his team-mate. The Monaco-based racer was punted into the turn 1 barriers on lap 5, right after the second re-start.

Trident Racing will be back on-track at the historical Silverstone venue in Great Britain for the sixth round out of the 12 scheduled for the season.

Julian Leal, 8th
“Today's race has been positive, no doubt about it. The car had a constant performance for the whole race and I've been able to push when necessary. In the middle part of the race I focused in saving my tires and the strategy paid off. In the closing laps, thanks to a clean racetrack, I turned some very fast lap and closed the gap on the drivers I had in front. I'm happy because, after having been hit by many unlucky circumstances, we managed to score the first point of the season. Let's hope it will be the start of a long positive streak”.

Stéphane Richelmi, DNF
“I'm really disappointed with how today's race ended. When we re-started after the safety-car I braked for the first corner and was in front of Gonzalez. He dived to the inside, so I went for a late braking and turned at the last possible moment as is clearly visible by the TV footage. In that moment, Gonzalez hit me and sent me into the barriers. The stewards looked at the incident with the footage that was available to them. Due to the distance and the different camera angles that did not provide an accurate look over how the contact started, they decided not to penalize Gonzalez. I accept their decision, but I couldn't have done anything different than I did”.